Subjectivity and the limits of narrative

Journal of Consciousness Studies 15 (2):51-66 (2008)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Traditionally, questions about consciousness and subjectivity are treated separately from questions about the self and identity. But sometimes 'the self' is spoken of as 'the subject,' which suggests that the first-person perspective may be constituted in the same way as the self. Narrative provides a powerful model of the self in contemporary psychology, philosophy of mind, and moral psychology. On some versions of narrative theory, narrative is held fundamental not only to self-understanding but to the phenomenology of the first-person point of view, too. I call this approach the narrative self-subject model. I argue that the narrative model does not apply to subjectivity, and that the narrative self should be distinguished from the 'I' of the first- person perspective. Roughly, this is because first-person narratives employ the first-person pronoun 'I' to identify some person, but the distinctive features of subjectivity are marked by a different, non-identifying use of the pronoun 'I'.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 106,951

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Narrative identity, practical identity and ethical subjectivity.Kim Atkins - 2004 - Continental Philosophy Review 37 (3):341-366.
'I' am a Fiction: An Analysis of the No-self Theories.Vineet Sahu - 2012 - Indian Philosophical Quarterly 39 (1-2):117-128.
Phenomenological approaches to consciousness.Shaun Gallagher - 2007 - In Max Velmans & Susan Schneider, The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. New York: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 686--696.
First Person and Minimal Self-Consciousness.Thor Grünbaum - 2012 - In Sofia Miguens & Gerhard Preyer, Consciousness and Subjectivity. [Place of publication not identified]: Ontos Verlag. pp. 273-296.
Identifying the First Person.Roblin Roy Meeks - 2003 - Dissertation, City University of New York

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
157 (#155,117)

6 months
8 (#540,103)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Joseph Neisser
Grinnell College

Citations of this work

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references